Air Law

On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in Donetsk Oblast, Eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board MH17, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, died. It claimed the lives of 193 Dutch nationals, 43 from Malaysia, and 27 from Australia. Other victims came from a variety of countries including Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and the Philippines. From the start, both the investigation into the cause of the crash and the criminal investigation into the downing of Flight MH17 were severely challenged due to the ongoing armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists, supported by the Russian Federation, and the Ukrainian government.

Pilot fatigue has long been stated as a concern in the airline industry. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has previously proposed setting limits on the duration that pilots can fly. Fatigue leads to slower reaction times and impaired concentration and decision making.
18 February 2016, new EASA Flight Time Limitations (FTL) rules (EU Regulation 83/2014) come into effect.
The aviation industry shifts to a fully harmonised European set of rules aimed at preventing air crew fatigue from constituting a risk to flight safety. Aviation accidents are still extremely rare, but when they have occurred, figures show that 80% are a result of human error, with pilot fatigue accounting for 15-20% of human error in fatal accidents.

The spectacular fast developments in aircraft technology in the beginning of the 20th century, made law-making necessary in this new field of transportation, in peace and in war. In 1910 the first conference on an international air law code took place in Paris. International air law now deals with many topics, such transport responsibility, safety of passengers, airplanes and luggage, airport-regulations, hijacking, air pollution, and aerial warfare.

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Islamic Law

Shari’a or the sacred law of Islam is the will of God revealed to the prophet Muhammad and eventually taken down in the text of the Quran. The Quran together with the Sunna, the normative precedents of the prophet and his followers, written down in the form of Traditions (hadith), form the two main sources of the Shari’a. The legal scholars of the science of Shari’a (fiqh) developed methodologies and constructed an elaborate legal system, discussing cases and exercising legal reasoning on the basis of consensus (ijma’) and on analogy (qiyas). The Shari’a prescribes in detail how a Muslim must behave in all aspects of life, that is, in the religious, moral and legal sphere and represents an eternally valid ideal to which society must aspire.